Audio 3:51
Solar panel manufacturer says sun setting on demand

Lexi MetherellUpdated
Tue Dec 06 14:30:00 EST 2011

The latest assessment of Australia's clean energy industry shows 10 per cent of Australia's power comes from renewable sources. Most of that is from hydro energy, but there's also been a surge in the number of homes with solar panels. However, the only remaining local solar panel manufacturer in Australia says the industry's bubble is now bursting.

Transcript

ELEANOR HALL: In the last three years, there has been a 3,500 per cent increase in the number of Australian households with solar roof panels.

Half a million Australian homes are now fitted with a solar panel system.

The Clean Energy Council says this shows that solar power has now come of age.

But Australia's only solar panel maker is not so optimistic, as Lexi Metherell reports.

LEXI METHERELL: This year enough electricity has come from renewable sources to power four million homes.

Most of it was hydro power.

KANE THORNTON: That's as a result largely of increased rainfall and therefore hydro power generation.

LEXI METHERELL: Kane Thornton is a director at the Clean Energy Council. The Council's annual assessment of the renewable energy industry was released overnight at the United Nations climate change talks in South Africa.

It shows 9.6 per cent of Australia's electricity was provided by renewable sources in 2011. That's up from 8.7 per cent last year.

Kane Thornton says although solar power remains a small part of the clean energy mix, 35 times as many homes have solar panels on their roofs, than they did three years ago.

KANE THORNTON: Nearly half a million Australian homes now have solar panels installed in the roofs of their houses meaning that over one million Australians now live in a solar powered home.

LEXI METHERELL: Over the last year federal and state governments have wound back solar panel rebates to homes. Kane Thornton's remains optimistic though that demand for solar panels will continue to grow.

KANE THORNTON: There certainly has been a slow down in the uptake of solar panels in the last months as a result of the reductions in incentives but we have certainly seen the cost of solar panels come down quickly over the last year or two and we think that will continue and therefore in the medium and long term that Australians will continue to really uptake solar panels with a lot of enthusiasm.

LEXI METHERELL: But his optimism isn't shared by Australia's only solar panel maker.

MICHAEL GOLDSWORTHY: What we've seen over the last two or three years is a bubble that's burst now.

LEXI METHERELL: The chief executive of Silex Systems, Michael Goldsworthy says the collapse of government incentives and increased competition from overseas has devastated his business.

MICHAEL GOLDSWORTHY: There's no value put on PV in New South Wales which was half of our market and so there is no incentive to put PV panels on your roof today even though there was perhaps a generous or even too generous a policy in place the last two years before that.

On top of that we are competing against a massive influx of cheap Chinese imports and the Australian dollar which doesn't help local manufacturing. So as the only local manufacturer of PV panels in Australia we've put our factory on hold. It is in a care and maintenance mode and we just have to assess the market and our business model in the New Year.

LEXI METHERELL: Like solar, wind is only a smallish part of the clean energy mix. But the investor relations manager at wind farm company Infigen Energy, Richard Farrell, says it's a growing industry.

RICHARD FARRELL: There has been a bit of delay in the development of wind farms due to the over supply of renewable energy certificates. That's been due to a lot of the small scale solar schemes that had been in place over the last number of years which have been heavily subsidised through feed-in tariffs from state governments.

There is going to be a supply shortfall in around 2014 but given it takes about two years to build a wind farm of any decent size, we expect development to pick up in 2012 and beyond.

LEXI METHERELL: The Clean Energy Council says Australia's on track to meeting its 20 per cent renewable target by 2020. But it will be a hard slog.

Although renewable energy generates about 10 per cent of Australia's power, 80 per cent still comes from black and brown coal.